Federal court overturns arson, murder verdict

A federal judge has overturned the 2006 arson and murder conviction of an Isabella County man.

U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Duggan reversed several state rulings in determining that Frederick Spencer’s trial attorney, Joseph Barberi, was negligent in not attempting to suppress evidence from hospital bed interviews with state fire investigators.

A jury in Isabella County Chief Judge Paul Chamberlain’s court convicted Spencer in March 2006 of setting the Jan. 30, 2000 fire that killed his live-in girlfriend, Kathy Sytek, at the home they shared on East Deerfield Road in Chippewa Township.

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In his opinion and order, Duggan, of the Eastern District of Michigan Southern Division in Detroit, said Barberi should have contested the admissibility of Spencer’s statements to a state police arson investigator while he was hospitalized, recovering from serious burns sustained in the fire.

Spencer, who is serving a life sentence in the Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson, must be released from prison in 180 days if a new trial is not set, the judge ruled.

Isabella County Prosecutor Risa Scully said she will consult with the appellate division of the Michigan Attorney General’s office before determining whether to appeal the federal judge’s ruling.

Spencer was taken to St. Mary’s hospital in Saginaw and admitted to the burn unit for treatment of severe burns to his face and arms.

An autopsy indicated that Sytek, 41, died of asphyxia caused by carbon monoxide poisoning as a result of the fire.

A state police arson investigator determined that Spencer set fires in the basement and garage of the home, and that the fire in the garage destroyed Spencer’s home.

During Spencer’s trial, then Chief Assistant Prosecutor Roy Kranz, now a federal prosecutor, played two audio taped interviews taken by Detective Sgt. Greg Proudfood while Spencer was hospitalized.

Spencer’s taped statements were used to show inconsistencies between his account of the fire and the evidence that Proudfoot found.

After Spencer was convicted by prior to his sentencing, Barberi moved for a directed verdict of acquittal and a new trial, saying the verdict was “against the great weight of the evidence.”

That motion was denied, and the Michigan Court of Appeals and the Michigan Supreme Court also upheld Spencer’s conviction and life sentence.

Spencer maintained that his right to effective assistant of counsel was violated because the statements he made while hospitalized should have been excluded as involuntary, according to court documents.

At the time Proudfoot interviewed Spencer, he was in intensive care and “was in a profoundly deteriorated physically and mental state that left him susceptible to coercion and lacking of free will,” according to court documents.

“The night before the interview, Spencer was injected with both Haldol and Demerol,” according to court documents.

Haldol is an anti psychotic, and Demerol is an opioid pain reliever.

Spencer was given two more doses of Haldol the morning of the interview, and had undergone two surgeries between the time he was admitted to the hospital and the interview, according to court documents.

One of Spencer’s physicians testified that Spencer was impaired by the Demerol, a narcotic, and that anything Spencer said should not be considered reliable, according to court documents.

Spencer also had long-term alcohol addiction and suffered a head injury in an automobile accident when he was a teenager.

Duggan ruled that the case against Spencer relied heavily on what he said as evidence of guilt and that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated because of ineffective assistance of counsel.

(Susan Field can be reached at sfield@michigannewspapers.com or follow her on Facebook at facebook.com/#!/susan.k.field.)